MyoKardia Inc. aims to bring new treatments to market for genetic cardiomyopathies

By Brittany Anas Camera Staff Writer

Posted:
09/23/2012 04:00:00 PM MDT

Leslie Leinwand
(
Ken Abbott
)

University of Colorado professor Leslie Leinwand has cofounded a new biomedical company that plans to bring new treatments for genetic heart diseases onto the market.

Third Rock Ventures LLC -- based in Boston and San Francisco -- has launched the company with $38 million in financing. The company, MyoKardia Inc., will use science from CU, Stanford University and the Harvard Medical School.

"This is another good example of the University of Colorado being on the map in biotechnology," said Leinwand, chief scientific officer at CU's Biofrontiers Institute.

Leinwand is among four company founders who are internationally recognized leaders in the fields of muscle biology and cardiovascular genetics.

The company will initially target two genetically driven types of disease that weaken and enlarge heart muscles and can ultimately lead to heart failure. Combined, the diseases affect about 1 million people in the United States.

Best known as the leading cause of sudden cardiac death in young athletes, hypertrophic cardiomyopathy causes the thickening of heart walls. Dilated cardiomyopathy produces weakening of the heart walls and enlargement of the heart chambers.

It's been a decade since new therapeutics to treat the diseases have been brought to the market.

The new therapies will address the causes of the disease instead of treating just the symptoms, Leinwand said.

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"I think one of the things that makes this company unique is the combination of experience of the founders," she said. "It's quite synergistic."

The company's other cofounders include professor James Spudich of Stanford, as well as husband-wife team Christine Seidman and Jonathan Seidman, both of Harvard.

The scientists will take a genetically targeted approach that could potentially change the treatment of cardiomyopathies and, in the future, a broader spectrum of heart disease.

Leinwand and Spudich have 70 years of collective experience working with the protein in cells responsible for muscle contraction, known as myosin. The Seidmans are renowned for discovering the genetic basis of hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, according to a news release.

Third Rock Ventures is a venture capital firm formed in 2007.

"Our goal is to provide treatments for patients with genetic diseases for whom the options to date have been profoundly limited," said Charles Homcy, interim CEO of MyoKardia and venture partner at Third Rock Ventures.

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